Recording devices for recording transmitted data items such as television or radio programmes are common place devices, existing in many homes. In particular, digital video recorders have grown in popularity considerably in recent years.
Despite the advances made in recording technology users often forget to set their recording devices to record programmes that they usually watch “live”, for example when going on holiday, causing them to miss the desired programmes while away from home. Even if the user does remember to set the recording device, such devices have limited memory resources to store programme data and it becomes difficult to calculate how much space they will need.